Breath Indicator

[Gildoran]

Just an idea for a breath indicator... you could use the coloring of the health bar. Eg, when the player is full of air, it'd be red, but as they get less and less air, it fades to a sickly blue. The health bar would be shown whenever the player is injured or doesn't have full air. You might also give the player tunnel vision at lower air amounts.

 

I guess the disadvantage of that would be if they're low on health, they might not know how much air they have left.

[Springheel]

Yeah, I set that idea aside for just that reason.

 

If we can't think of anything better, we could always just have a blue bar above the lightgem just like the healthbar is below it, but I'd like to do something even less obtrusive if possible.

[Gildoran]

I'd like to try fiddling with this some... if I come up with something that seems reasonable to me, mind if I upload it on CVS for other people to try out?

[Springheel]

Sure.

[Gildoran]

Ok, I've modified the HP-bar some... I've added a glow around the health-bar which makes its color visible, even if the solid part (your actual health) is tiny. I've also added the breath-meter via the color of the health bar, and it's set up with tables so that it's easy to tweak the colors (it may look too bright at the moment), and you can have it transition through any number of colors as the player's air drops.

[Springheel]

I've also added the breath-meter via the color of the health bar, and it's set up with tables so that it's easy to tweak the colors (it may look too bright at the moment), and you can have it transition through any number of colors as the player's air drops.

 

So it's the colour of your healthbar that determines when you're out of air? Hmmm. Definitely saves screen real-estate. I'll have to test it out. It might make it more difficult for injured players to see how much breath is left though.

[sparhawk]

I don't like colours indicating such stuff, because I'm colour blind and I bet there are many others also playing Thief and TDM. If this info is only encoded in colour, then this could become a problem for us. It would be nice if there were a more obvious way to do this.

[OrbWeaver]

I guess you could use brightness rather than colour for this. I would suggest using something else in addition though, because it might be quite hard to guess how much air you have left based purely on a changing colour/brightness.

[Springheel]

Yeah, I've been thinking about this, and another problem is that it would be very unclear to the player exactly when they were going to start losing health--they'd have to recognize the exact shade of blue, which would take some experience. Swimming underwater only happens maybe once or twice a mission, so I'm wondering if we shouldn't use something that's a little easier to digest in a glance. I have an idea actually, that I'll put together tonight.

[Domarius]

Well, I don't think it's really important to complicate it by melding it with some other part of the hud.

 

Like you said, swimming is kind of rare. I think a new breath bar that appeared when you were underwater wouldn't be so bad. Its not worth getting all technical about it IMO.

[Springheel]

I'm going to try a small bar like the healthbar that appears above the lightgem, but instead of a red bar, it has bubbles inside it (a nod to T2). I think that will be easier to decipher and is equally easy to read regardless of whether you're injured or not.

 

(BTW, I can't remember...in Thief does lost health come back after you get out of the water, or is any HP damage permanent?)

[Domarius]

Yeah I was thinking of a small bar, if you were worried about screen real-estate. Sounds good.

 

Though if its seperate bubbles and not a solid bar, then it might get hard to see it the smaller it gets?

[Domarius]

(BTW, I can't remember...in Thief does lost health come back after you get out of the water, or is any HP damage permanent?)

Man, you guys have been playing Mario 64 too much or something That's the only game I know of where that happens. Yeah the health lost to drowning is permanent in Thief.

[Springheel]

That's the only game I know of where that happens

 

It happens in D3 as well. If we don't want the health to come back we'll have to disable that somehow.

[Domarius]

It does?? Well there was no swimming in vanilla D3, so I had no idea. Oh you mean loosing your breath between airlocks... I swear the health didn't come back after you got your breath back... oh well.

[New Horizon]

Just a thought. What if the breath indicator were to over ride the health indicator while swimming, so they could use the same space? I mean, you don't start to lose health until you run out of breath...so there would be no reason to see it anyway. Once you have run out of bubbles..or whatever the indicator is, it disappears and you start seeing your health deplete. The only issue might be if AI shot you with an arrow while you were swimming...but it's a small issue really.

[Gildoran]

I don't like colours indicating such stuff, because I'm colour blind and I bet there are many others also playing Thief and TDM.

Whoops, I was so entranced with the nifty idea of combining the two meters into one that I completely forgot about colorblind people. I guess that rules out this idea.

 

Just a thought. What if the breath indicator were to over ride the health indicator while swimming, so they could use the same space?

Then we'd have to scrap the whole water-zombie idea... Speaking of which, I had that happen to me at the bonehoard and it worked. I was exploring a pool, when a zombie suddenly fell in from a wooden plank above and started taking swipes at me. I've never seen myself struggle to get to a ladder so quickly and in such a panic before.

[Springheel]

Just a thought. What if the breath indicator were to over ride the health indicator while swimming, so they could use the same space?

 

I had considered that, but it does create problems if you're taking damage in the water for any reason while holding your breath (heat, underwater zombies, arrows, etc).

 

I'll try implementing the separate bar tonight and see what people think.

[New Horizon]

Hmmm, how about this then.

 

Spring, you mentioned bubbles. If the bubbles are transparent enough, you should be able to see them over top of the health bar....without obscuring how much health you have left as well. Also, make the health bar a little taller.

[sparhawk]

Whoops, I was so entranced with the nifty idea of combining the two meters into one that I completely forgot about colorblind people. I guess that rules out this idea.

 

I guess most people wont think of that. I was pleasntly surprised when I played Frozen Bubble, because the implemented a pattern as well, so that I could play it. The original game was only with colour bubles, and I always lost because I shoot the wrong bubbles.

 

Then we'd have to scrap the whole water-zombie idea... Speaking of which, I had that happen to me at the bonehoard and it worked. I was exploring a pool, when a zombie suddenly fell in from a wooden plank above and started taking swipes at me. I've never seen myself struggle to get to a ladder so quickly and in such a panic before.

 

LOL

[Gildoran]

I might have an idea for a way to do the bubbles with a texture... I'll go see if I can bang something out.

 

The effect will be similar to Thief, except instead of a line of bubbles, it'll be a patch of bubbles where there's fewer and fewer as your air drops.

 

Edit: Unfortunately, apparently alphatest only works if you have a depth buffer, which isn't the case with GUIs, so my idea didn't work. I'll see if I can come up with anything else.

 

Edit 2: It occured to me that I may still be able to achieve this idea with the modelrender def...

[Schatten]

Just as an alternative: How about a round dial?

 

 

Not a full 360° one, rather 180° in the middle (top of screen?) or 90° in a corner...

[sophisticatedZombie]

Hey spar, the color blindness thing is something everybody always forgets about.

 

I've been on a couple of committees that discuss human factors aspects of avionics displays. I'm not a human factors expert, or an expert on sensory perception, but I have learned a few things over the years.

 

Brightness doesn't work too well as an indicator because it is can't be judged without comparison to neighboring shades of intensity. As the view moves around and things on the screen change, the indicator will be hard to judge.

 

A simple guage would work best. A moving bar or guage helps people in judging the time left available to them in order to complete tasks. Circular dials are tougher to interpret in this context, but do have the benefit of looking rather steam-punk.

 

Just a possibility, maybe we could use pixel shaders to fade the view and make it hazier and hazier around the edges to simulate the tunnel vision that ensues with oxygen depletion. It would be a nice adjunct to a guage of some kind.

[Springheel]

If the bubbles are transparent enough, you should be able to see them over top of the health bar..

 

Considered that too. I think that might get a little cluttered, however, as the health bar is already quite small. I think an extra bar is simple, easy to understand, and won't take up much space. I'll post a concept shortly.

 

edit: Come to think of it, we probably don't even need the metal bars, just the bubble texture. It would essentially be the same as T2, just shrunk and placed over the lightgem.

[Springheel]

Ok, here's a version with the bars. It would only appear when you entered water, and it would disappear as soon as it hit 0 (so you would rarely have both bars on screen at the same time).

 

 

You can click here to get a sense of how much screen real-estate it takes up. I could make a slightly larger one without the bars, but it would need a transparent background to look good.

 

I think something like this is probably the easiest way to go--anyone can tell at a glance how much breath is left, it doesn't take up much space and the bubbles are a nice nod to the earlier games. Sometimes simple is best.